Before the waking blink
by Shellsanne
Summary: Having lost everything he cares about, now losing Sam as well, Dean is traveling a very dark road. His only hope may lie in the dead friend who betrayed him, but Castiel can only reach him through a dream. This story predates "Emmanuel".


_**Before the waking blink**_

Author: Shellsanne  
>Fandom: Supernatural<br>Characters: Dean and Castiel  
>Genre: heavy on the angst, a bit of (emotional) hurtcomfort, no slash  
>Spoilers: This takes place after season 7, episode 15, and (importantly!) BEFORE ep. 17<p>

Comments welcome! Please comment!

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><p>x<p>

The red needle on the speedometer tips past 90, and Dean leans gently on the gas. The engine responds to his touch with hungry, swift precision (_like the best lovers do_, Dean thinks with a wry smile), and the Impala surges forward into the narrow tunnel its headlights burn into the night. When the needle edges past 100, Dean shouts a gleeful whoop out the open window.

It's a glorious night. Not that he can actually see it beyond the halogen beams, and at this speed, but the wind rushing past him through the open windows feels seductively cool on his face, it carries the scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and the sky overhead sparkles magnificently, boastfully, in moonless starlight. It reminds him of summer nights long ago, riding shotgun to his dad when he was a kid. Just leaning back, thinking of nothing, not a care in the world (_was there really a time he didn't have a care in the world?—_he isn't sure about that), and watching the world rush by in a dark blur as Dad gunned the engine. He can picture his father at the wheel now, turning to gaze down at him, smiling with pride the way dads do. (He isn't sure that ever happened either.)

AC/DC blasts through the speakers on dashboard-rattling rifts of "Back in Black." Dean thumps his palms against the steering wheel in time with the beat. A narrow and impossibly straight road stretches out in front of him. There seems to be nothing on either side of it, and nothing up ahead. He has no idea where he's going, only that he's going there fast. He leans back and speeds through the night like this. He hasn't felt this good, this free, this alive, in longer than he can remember.

It's a shame it's just a dream.

The brunette in the passenger seat slips her hand over his knee. He's pretty sure she was a blonde the last time he glanced over. Her name is Kiki Fantasia, at least that was the name splashed beneath her centerfold layout in the March issue of _Busty Asian Beauties_ that he'd been browsing back at the motel. He isn't sure she's Asian. But she's definitely busty, and that's close enough. Kiki is decked out in a tight black tank top, a ridiculously short black leather skirt, black fishnet stockings, and, the _pièce de résistance_, a utility belt with holsters. There's a semi-automatic in the right holster. She wears a loose ponytail, whipping behind her now in the wind. She smiles at him. He nods at her. No, her name definitely isn't Kiki; it's Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. He'd know that utility belt anywhere. And Lara is on a job tonight with Dean. Together they're hunting…

"What is it we're hunting again?"

She crosses one lithesome black-laced leg over the other and leans in close, purring against his neck in a British lilt, "Who the bloody hell cares? Just shut and _drive_, gorgeous."

And drive he does. Pedal to the metal, pushing the needle past 110 now, and that impossibly straight road rolls out ahead of him like a red carpet, inviting him onward. Not just inviting. _Insisting_. Promising all will be well if he just keeps on driving and never looks back. It feels intoxicatingly irresistible…

Dean smiles as Kiki—no, _Lara_—brushes her lips against his neck, glides her tongue along his skin, and nibbles at his earlobe, sending little shivers down his spine. He feels the hand on his knee smoothing up along his thigh now, the warm pressure of her fingers sliding silkily upward.

Breathily she whispers, "Drive me _wild_, you sex demon."

Her fingers have found the zipper of his jeans, and they're tugging teasingly at the pull tab. His eyes are on the road but he's not really seeing it anymore. He's lost in the perfection of the moment. In the perfection of the dream. He hasn't had a dream this satisfying in at least six months. His dreams are normally nightmares, and he's half-expecting Lara to morph any second into a slavering Wendigo, or a razor-toothed Leviathan, but _damn_, he'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Her fingers are delving beneath the zipper now, slipping further down, exploring and probing, and Dean lets his eyes roll up and his head loll back. "Oh yeah, Lara," he moans in a swoon, "raid my tomb, baby, seize the jewels…"

It all happens so fast. Her lips are on his, her tongue sliding between them, when for some reason his eyes flicker open, just for an instant, just long enough to glance through the windshield to see the man standing in the middle of the road dead ahead of him, frozen in the headlights. Dean cries out, he shunts the steering wheel violently to the left, and the Impala spins wildly out of control. He slams on his brakes, but it's too late. The Impala careers off the road and goes flying, dipping and diving through the implacable darkness, blazing a frenzied path through space itself.

Yeah, this is more like his dreams.

And then with a surprisingly placid thud (he fully expected to be jolted awake by the crash-landing), the car touches down. In the sand. On a beach. On a beautiful, sun-drenched day.

The Impala faces the sea. Dean stares through the windshield at a tranquil, iridescent blue ocean that stretches to the horizon and rolls toward him in gentle, foamy waves across white sand. The sun shines down from a cloudless blue sky, where gulls glide playfully on a light breeze. The sand is white in a way he's never seen white sand before, as if it's pure and untrodden by human feet. The scene is postcard-perfect. It's stunning.

"Whoa, that was close," he mutters with a little sigh. "But kinda cool." And he's smiling as he turns to his passenger, asking, "So where were w—" but the _we_ turns into more of a _waaahhh _yelp of shock as he recoils and collides painfully with the door behind him.

"Hello, Dean." Castiel sits beside him in the passenger seat. He's staring ahead at the seascape and when he finally turns his head to meet Dean's gaze it's with hesitance, almost apprehension.

"Jesus _Christ!_" Dean howls furiously. "What the _hell!_ What—what are you—_what did you do with Lara?_"

Castiel blinks at him in surprise, edging back slightly. "Who?"

Dean has flattened himself against the door behind him, but his eyes flare and his voice shakes with rage. Wendigo he could have handled, Leviathan, bring 'em on. But _this_—"Oh _this_ is not okay, do you understand me? Completely not okay! And _you_—you're unbelievable. Even when you're dead you're making guest appearances in my dreams! And I've got to tell you something, it's a little freaky! I mean, what the hell is wrong with me that just as I'm about to get it on with Lara freakin' Croft, _you_ suddenly—" His thoughts skid off-course, just as the Impala had, before the image of the figure frozen in his windshield. "Wait. That was you. That was you? That was _you_ in the road! Oh, you've got to be kidding me, what the _hell!_"

"I needed to get your attention," the man beside him finally manages to interject.

"Are you _insane?_"

Castiel appears to consider this for a moment. "I don't think so. But I am somewhat rusty in this method of communication."

Dean's furor ratchets up. "You're what? No. No, you're not. You're not rusty. You're _dead_. And you popping up in my front seat when I'm about to get laid by Lara Croft is _not _a healthy sign! Get the hell outta my dream! Get out of my head!"

His uninvited passenger looks genuinely confused. "Dean—"

"_Get out of my car!_"

Castiel flinches as if he's been physically hit by the blast of Dean's order, and he reluctantly obliges. He swings open the door, steps out into the sand, hesitates a moment as he looks back, as if he's about to say something, then shuts the door.

Dean drags a shaking hand over his face. He takes a deep breath, desperate to smooth the ragged edges of his raw anger (and just a little surprised by how raw the anger is—_It's just a stupid dream_, he thinks). He watches the part of his dream (okay, _nightmare_) masquerading as Cas trudge slowly, and a little dejectedly, through the sand around to the front of the car, his eyes locked on Dean's the whole time. It's beyond freaky, Dean thinks. It's creepy. And for some reason it's tapping into a torrent of rage running so deep within him that it's unnerving him, even immobilizing him. As they stare at each other through the windshield, Dean realizes he isn't moving.

He shakes his head, trying to snap himself out of it, and starts the engine. He revs it, shoves the gearstick fiercely into reverse, and floors it. The car doesn't move.

"_C'mon_, baby," Dean growls through gritted teeth as the Impala rocks backward slightly, struggling to find purchase as the tires spin uselessly in the soft sand, sending a shower of fine spray across the hood. "_Come on!_" he thunders. He's becoming frantic now, moving in feverish jerks, stops and starts, breathing in fast, erratic gasps, digging the tires in deeper with each attempt to free them, sending layer upon layer of spiraling sand onto the hood.

Castiel looks on calmly.

The car isn't going anywhere, and Dean is throwing a small tantrum. He stomps furiously on the floormats, pounds his fists on the steering wheel, hurls abuse at the seagulls wafting indifferently overhead, and unleashes the occasional shout of wordless apoplexy at the top of his lungs. Castiel just watches.

Feeling spent and miserable, breathing heavily and covered in sweat, Dean gives up now. Furious but utterly helpless, he glares through the windshield at the man watching him and twists the key out of the ignition. For a while neither of them moves. They just stare at each other. Dean feels something lightly brush his lips, tickling his nose, and he swipes away a small white feather that has blown in through the window. He stares at it a moment in his fingers, then shoves it petulantly back out the window. It blows back in.

He throws open the door now, stomps out, and slams it shut as hard as he can. Nothing in the beatific expanse of scenery is in the slightest bit affected. Including Castiel.

"This is not okay," Dean says again. "You hear me? _You—_" and he raises his arm to point accusingly at the man across the hood, "do not belong here. You know how I know that? Because I may be crazy, but I'm not _that _crazy!" He marches through the fine white powder toward Castiel as the rant continues. "There is _no_ _part_ of me that could possibly want to swap a chick in fishnets and a utility belt with _you! _So why the hell are you here? And…"

He stops now, struggling to catch his breath, and glances around. "Where the hell is here anyway?"

Castiel glances around as well. They both take in the scenery, both of them assessing and studying the empty white sand stretching out to either side of them, the jutting rocks behind them leading up to a tropical expanse of lush greenery.

"Wait…" says Dean, narrowing his eyes, "wait, wait. I think I know this place."

"I believe it's an uncharted island off the east coast of Tasmania," offers Castiel.

"It was in a magazine I was flipping through this morning. I think it was an ad…"

"There are no inhabitants, and it's less than five hundred yards in diameter."

Dean levels a wary stare at Castiel.

"Two hundred during high tide," Castiel continues.

"How do I know all this?" Dean asks quietly, above the soft murmur of lapping water.

The angel frowns at him, tilts his head slightly. "Because I have just told you."

"Yeah, whatever," says Dean with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It was an _ad for sunscreen_, so how do I know it's in freakin' Tasmania?"

Castiel makes a small sound, a murmur of frustration. He glances away impatiently. "Dean, I'm having more difficulty than usual following you."

"You know what?" Dean flares, "Forget it. Doesn't matter. I don't care where we are, so long as _you're_ not part of the _we_." And now standing there on the beach, unaware that his shoes are sinking into wet sand as seawater gently swirls around them, he lifts his chin slightly and shuts his eyes tight, as if he's about to make a wish.

And in a way he does just that. "So this dream is hereby vetoed. I want you gone now. I want Lara back. And uh…" He smiles slightly, rocking back on his heels with the vision in his head. "… different outfit would be nice, to suit the location. I'm thinking maybe … black leather bikini … lose the ponytail…" The smile widens dreamily as he perfects the image in his mind. "Utility belt stays though. _Oh_ yeah …"

He sighs, opens his eyes, and finds Castiel staring blankly at him.

"_And _you're still here," Dean hisses.

Castiel simply watches as Dean begins stomping back and forth, kicking at the sand. "You know, why can't I just _wake up? _Why isn't _that_ working?"

It was a rhetorical question really, borne of frustration, but his companion answers it anyway, looking pleased that he can offer something helpful. "Because I won't allow it."

Dean stops pacing. He shoots Castiel a daggered look and smiles at him in humorless irritation. "Oh, you won't allow it. The creepy, freaky figment of my really crappy dream won't allow me to wake up. Well, that's just awesome." And he resumes his pacing in front of the car. He wonders idly where it was that he fell asleep, whether Sam might be around to wake him soon, but he can't recall. He can't seem to think clearly enough to retrieve that information.

"Dean," he hears Castiel say, in a careful, hesitant tone, "can I ask you something?"

"Can I stop you?" he grumbles, psyching himself up for whatever assault is about to come next.

"You haven't referred to me by my name yet. Why is that?"

That isn't what he was expecting. It doesn't fuel his anger, or heighten his sense of helplessness here. Dean has no idea what it means. Why should a figment of his imagination, a character in a bad dream, give a damn whether he's being addressed by name or not?

Dean stops, glances briefly at the source of the odd question, who watches him with narrowed eyes, studying him, as if trying to puzzle something out. Dean just shakes his head. He looks off down the white, white beach, hoping for some sign of possible escape. "Five hundred yards, huh?"

"At low tide."

And for some reason, just as Dean was dismally reconciling himself to being stuck here for the duration, until Sam wakes him up, that comment alone has tripped off the anger again. Maybe because it feels like Castiel is deliberately winding him up.

He turns on him now. "So what is this? What do you want? What the hell am I trying to tell myself?"

Castiel frowns again. "What makes you think you're trying to tell yourself anything?"

"Because you're in _my head_," Dean explodes, "you're part of _my thoughts_. And it really _pisses me off!_ So what is it I'm trying to say here? Can I—can _you—_just get on with it so that I can wake the hell up and forget you were ever here?"

His companion regards him with a small smile. "Your arrogance never fails to amaze me, Dean."

"You know what amazes me? How even in my dreams you're a douche bag."

Castiel gives a curt nod of annoyance, a sign that he's been just a little hurt, and glances off at the sea in silence.

Dean throws his arms out to his sides in exasperation. "_So?_"

"So what?" grunts Castiel without looking at him.

Dean moves closer to him now, as close as they were in the front seat of the car, and squares off with him. "So _what do you want?_"

When Castiel levels his gaze on him, it's with such fierce intensity that Dean feels a strange prickling sensation running along the base of his spine up to his neck. He feels almost dizzy for a moment, as if something is reaching into him, touching and enveloping his innermost thoughts, communicating with them, pulling them toward something else, some_one_ else… It isn't an unfamiliar sensation. But even in a dream it takes his breath away.

"I want you to understand," Castiel says.

"Understand what?" Dean chokes out.

And it's then that Castiel hauls off and punches him squarely in the face, hard. Dean stumbles backward against the hood of the car, losing his balance, and slides down to the sand, feeling the bumper rake against back. He is shocked, not as much by the action as by the acute, jolting pain. He wouldn't expect pain in a dream to feel this _painful_. His thoughts are swimming.

"That I'm real," Castiel says calmly, quietly. He kneels next to Dean, and leans in very close. "That I'm _in_ your dream, but I'm not _of_ it."

Dean stares at him dazedly, rubbing his jaw. The fist collided with his cheek, but it feels like his jaw was whacked out of alignment. _How is that possible?_, his mind demands."Yeah…? You know what I think?" Castiel narrows his eyes on him, waiting. "I think Sam put way too much spice in his meatballs last night. I think he doesn't get to cook any more. Tonight we get take-out." He grabs the fender and hoists himself to his feet in a move intended to look casual and smug, but instead feeling brittle and clumsy. He notices as he smoothes sand from his shirt that his hands are shaking.

A kind of hopelessness sweeps over Castiel's expression, over his entire demeanor, as he stands. He suddenly looks very tired. "This was clearly a mistake," he says under his breath, more to himself than to Dean, and he glances off distractedly down the beach, as if contemplating his own escape now.

"And you know what else I think?" asks Dean. It hurts his jaw to talk, and he suspects the punch might have dislocated it, although he knows that's impossible, that this is, after all, _just a fucking dream_, and now he's furious again. "I think if I'm beating myself up through you … of all people, _you_ … I must be more fucked up than I thought I was."

He has Castiel's attention again.

"It was six months ago," Dean says, moving away from the car now, and in a slow, measured arc around Castiel as he speaks, his voice uneven and faltering. "And I've moved on. I'm fine. Because I am _not _responsible for what happened to you, Cas—" He winces at the sound of the name, forgetting until that instant just how much pain it causes him, which is why he never uses it any more.

"I did what I could to help you," he continues, recovering. "I mean, I … I know Sam's the one who called you. He's the one who believed you were still worth saving. And I'm the one who didn't. I'm the one who couldn't. But in the end … I _tried_. You know?" His pitch rises unsteadily, anger flooding his senses. "And you didn't exactly give me a lot to work with, did you. I mean, you show up at the last goddamn minute, we had almost no time to spare, what was I supposed to do? _How was I supposed to save you? _How was I supposed to…" Tears are rippling his vision, and that makes him even angrier. "So if you're here to remind me of my guilt, you can forget it! You understand? Because it _wasn't my fault! _I _do not_ blame myself for losing you!"

He quickly turns away, faces the sea, desperate to control the emotions fighting it out inside of him, and a little alarmed by their intensity. He inhales a deep breath of salty ocean air, feels the sun's heat on his face, and slowly exhales it.

Behind him, Castiel quietly asks, "Are you sure?"

Dean looks over at him, shooting him a defiant glare. "Am I dead? Is that what this is? Because if I'm stuck on a deserted island with a dead angel for a shrink, then this must be Hell. Can I at least trade you for Alastair?"

Castiel lowers his head, but not before Dean catches the little smile stealing over his lips.

_At least some part of me is amused_, Dean thinks huffily. He looks away, rakes a shaky hand over his face. Then looks back.

Looks at his unwanted guest more closely now. At the loafers, the faded jeans, and the light jacket, a windbreaker, flapping in the breeze over a white t-shirt. "Where's the coat?" he asks softly.

Castiel looks up at him. "What?"

"The Columbo special, the trench coat, you're always in the trench coat, why aren't you wearing it now?"

Castiel sighs. "I lost it in the lake, Dean. I don't know what happened to it."

"Of _course_ you know what happened to it," Dean snaps. "Because _I _know. So why would I…?" Thoughts begin to tumble over one another, a little desperately. "Why would my brain dress you like … like…" He waves a hand toward Castiel, gesturing toward his clothes, thoughts tumbling and crashing into one another. "I mean, this isn't how I … how I remember…"

And he notices that Castiel is watching him now with an expression of such compassion, such regret, that it sends chills through him. And suddenly it's too much. It's too real. Why would he be looking at him that way? What would be the point? And his jaw suddenly hurts like hell…

"This is just a dream. I'm just dreaming you, right? Tell me I'm just dreaming you."

"This _is _just a dream," comes the soft reply.

"And none of this real. You're not here. Right?"

The man standing a few yards from him, the man in the dark windbreaker, simply watches him, and waits.

"_Tell me you're not here!_"

He briefly looks down. Then back up. Quietly he says, "I won't lie to you, Dean."

Dean can't stop the bitter laugh that escapes him. "Since when?"

"Since nearly destroying you with my last lie."

They stand facing each other for a long moment, neither of them moving, neither of them speaking, their eyes locked on each other. Waves splash in gentle eddies across the sand, gulls cry in the distance … and realization is hitting Dean with the force of a freight train in slow motion, and he feels the world begin to tip away from him.

In a voice so full of emotion that it's barely audible, Dean whispers, "_Cas_…_?_"

Castiel's eyes never leave Dean as he approaches him, closing the distance between them slowly, carefully, as if concerned the wrong move might frighten him away. As he reaches him, he glances at his chin, noticing the trickle of blood there that Dean isn't aware of. He pulls a handkerchief from a pocket in the windbreaker.

"I've hurt you," he says, gently pressing the handkerchief against Dean's chin. "Again." A faint, tired smile plays across his features. "I'm sorry," he says, and as he pulls his hand away, Dean notices that the pain in his jaw has vanished. He's just been healed.

Dean seizes his wrist so suddenly that Castiel drops the bloodied handkerchief, and it flutters away on a breeze. And now he's holding the wrist so tightly that he can feel its pulse, Jimmy Novak's pulse, throbbing beneath his fingers. He can feel the warmth of the skin, the solidity of the bones, and he's afraid if he lets go Castiel might vanish. So he holds on. And with his free hand he clasps the angel's other arm, feeling the warmth of his forearm beneath the jacket sleeve, then clasps his elbow, feeling its sharp angle, then clasps his upper arm, feeling the flex of taut muscles, and now releasing the wrist, he clamps both hands on Castiel's shoulders in a firm grip, and once again just feels the solidity, the _realness_.

Dean only now glances into the angel's eyes, a little haltingly, a little terrified this might be nothing more than a practical joke his brain is playing on him, and finds Castiel observing his actions with curiosity and wonderment, allowing every touch. He releases one shoulder and reaches for Castiel's face. And hesitates, his fingers trembling, his emotions a tangled mix of embarrassment, and hope, and elation. He feels like a kid on Christmas morning, excited and eager to tear open every box, not quite trusting himself to behave like an adult. He can't suppress his smile any longer, and he lightly slaps his hand against Cas's face. Feeling the solidity. Hearing the sound. Noticing the details, the crinkle of skin around Cas's eyes as he smiles back. He drops his hand now, his eyes following its path, and presses his palm flat against the angel's chest, feeling the heartbeat there, the life, the _presence_ of his friend, and for one brief, delirious moment, Dean Winchester allows himself to feel joy.

"You're really here…" he manages.

"Yes."

Dean's gaze climbs up into Castiel's. "You're here."

"Yes."

"And you're real."

Castiel is still smiling, still sharing Dean's reaction. "Yes."

"But … how?"

"I've entered your dreams in the past, Dean."

"You were _alive_ in the past."

Castiel watches him, weighing his words. "And I'm alive _now_."

Dean utters a small laugh. "Yeah, I noticed, but…"

It takes him a moment. This is the drawback of joy, Dean will think later. It clouds judgment, delays reaction time. And he's already berating himself for getting caught up in such a childish flood of emotion.

He draws away from Castiel now, taking a full step back as the new realization sinks in. He's dimly aware that the quality of light has just changed, just shifted slightly, as if the sun in his flawless sky has found clouds to disappear behind.

"You survived," Dean says stiltedly.

Castiel is looking uncomfortable, and he speaks quickly now, as if rushing the words will speed him past the discomfort. "Of course I survived. I wouldn't otherwise be here. I'm alive in human form, in waking reality, and you'll be able to reach me soon, but that isn't relevant now, because right now I'm here for one reason only, and that's to give you a message—"

"I watched the Leviathans pulverize you from the inside out." Dean's voice sounds flat and mechanical to his own ears. "I watched you disintegrate into a lake like it was a vat of acid."

The angel sighs again, this time with an air of defeat, and looks down. He's made a run with the ball, Dean thinks, only to be tackled just short of the end zone. "I know," is all he says.

Silence lingers. "You _know?_" Dean finally interrupts it with. "What, that's it? That's all you're gonna say?"

"I survived."

"Great. Well, I guess that part's covered." And he can feel the rage inside him sparking again, the fuse re-lit. "So then what?"

Castiel stares at him, looking impatient and frustrated. "I don't understand."

"No. Neither do I. Where the hell have you been? What have you been doing all this time?"

"Dean—"

"_Why haven't you contacted me?_"

"I'm contacting you now."

"It's been _six months_, Cas!"

"Dean, please. I know you feel deserving of an explanation, but it's complicated, and there may not be much time—"

"Then you better _talk fast!_"

"Dean—"

"Stop it," Dean snarls, backing further away. "Stop saying my name. Like we're friends. Like you give a fuck about me."

Castiel raises his arms in a gesture of bewilderment and futility. "I don't understand this anger…" He lets them drop to his sides. "I know you feel betrayed by me—"

"Betrayed? Oh, we've just moved past betrayed. Where were you when the monsters you unleashed from Purgatory started ripping the world apart? Where were you when Bobby died? Where were you when Sam started losing his mind? You promised me you'd help me—yeah, I remember that, you _promised _me!—and then you left me alone with all of it, Cas. You _abandoned _me…"

Dean feels something inside him begin to crumble, and it terrifies him. This isn't him. The emotions he's feeling are too extreme. He looks up at the darkening sky, at the clouds overhead swirling crazily with his rage, at waves pitching and cresting on the sea.

"You have to control this, Dean," Castiel warns behind him. "Or we'll lose this opportunity."

"What do you want?" Dean asks without turning away from the roiling rifts of the ocean. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to help you."

"If you want to help me," he says, as a jagged spear of light flashes through the cloud bank, "_stay dead_."

Dean winces at the words, immediately regretting them. Horrified that he would say them. _Get us out of here_, is what he meant to say, he's sure of it. He doesn't understand his anger either, or half of what he's saying here. He closes his eyes tightly, struggling to take in a deep breath. "I'm sorry," he breathes out. "I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did," Castiel replies mildly. "In the moment you said it."

"No, I … don't know why I'm …" Dean feels dizzy. He can hear the uneven, rasping sounds of his own breathing, the pounding of his own heart. He needs this to end now. He needs this to be _just a dream_, and he desperately wants to wake up from it. _Where the hell are you, Sam? _A shudder churns through his whole body with the question, and he feels sick.

And then he feels the hand on his shoulder, warm and steadying and _real_, anchoring him to this moment. The queasiness immediately subsides. A calm washes over him. When his eyes flutter open, the sky is still overcast, heavy with clouds, but the sea has quieted.

"This is your subconscious," Castiel says slowly, in a soothing tone. "It's a storehouse of unfiltered thoughts and feelings. If they seem intense and raw, it's because they're in their purest form here, uncensored by your conscious mind. But to you they're very real."

"Right," Dean manages, trying to take it all in, "and … that's where you chose to pop up. In my … uncensored brain." He snorts a humorless, awkward laugh. "Good times."

The hand on his shoulder pulls him backward, pivoting him around to face Castiel, whose tone is distinctly less soothing now. "Listen to me, Dean. I've had no access to you, no means of reaching you. But when I heard your call, I managed to create a breach, a gateway between my dimensional plane and your subconscious. It's hardly ideal. I have limited control, no idea how long it will last, and you're unlikely to remember any of it, but under the circumstances, _it was the best that I could do_."

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Andretti," Dean interjects, both hands raised. "What do you mean I won't remember any of it?"

Castiel withdraws his hand. He has that weary, defeated look again. "It's just a dream."

"That never stopped you barking orders in my dreams before."

"This is different … _I'm _different. And I'm not in control."

"Of course you're in control! You're keeping me from waking up, aren't you?"

"Temporarily. And that's about all I can do. It's otherwise just a normal dream."

"Normal." Dean grunts. "Really."

"Yes," says the angel, looking at him now with a faint sadness and a kind of longing. "And normal human dreams fade quickly when you wake. They dissolve in the light of day. In the first waking blink of an eye. What you remember from them, if anything, is arbitrary at best."

Dean hears the words and is dimly aware of feeling cheated. "So, lemme see if I got this. You've ripped yourself a breach to give me a message I probably won't remember. Sorta begs the question…" He gives a little shrug. "What's the point? Why go to all this trouble?"

And there it is again. The frown. The little head tilt. (_I've missed that_, Dean thinks, and winces even as he thinks it. Fucking subconscious and its lack of filters…) Castiel seems genuinely perplexed by the question.

"Because you called," he says simply.

"Yeah…" says Dean with an uneasy smile, "and that's the other thing. I never called you."

"But you did."

Dean just stares at him for a moment, bewildered by how utterly convinced he looks. "Uh, _no_… I definitely did not call you. You were dead. I make a point of deleting dead people from my cellphone. Why would I call you?"

Castiel's mouth tips in what can only be called a smirk (_he _is _different_, Dean thinks). "And you accuse _me_ of being too literal."

"No, I accuse you of being too cryptic, which you're being again. Just say what you mean."

"You didn't literally call out," the angel explains gently. "But there is a connection between us, Dean. And the brokenness in your soul … the hopelessness … reached me."

Dean stops breathing. He wishes he hadn't asked. He feels like he's stepped into an elaborately rigged trap, a cage camouflaged with sea and sand and sky, luring him in with his missing Impala, with his missing friend, and the door has just slammed shut behind him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Of course you do."

Dean struggles to maintain eye contact, but he just can't. The angel's gaze is like a freakin' tractor beam, delving into his mind and targeting his thoughts, pulling at the truth. He tries again to remember where he was before this, because Castiel admitted his control wouldn't hold out, and maybe focusing on waking reality might pull him out of this, maybe he could wake himself up, but when he tries there's just nothing to latch on to, there's just nothing there.

"No," he replies, trying to sound light. "Really don't."

Castiel glances at the sky with a troubled expression, and Dean notices the light shifting again. It is growing suddenly dark, and within moments the sun has vanished, replaced by a moon high in the night sky, oversized, like in old horror movies, and wisped by thin strands of cloud. There are just a scattering of stars out, and it's much colder than it was.

The angel trains his focus back on Dean, piercing him with his icy blues. "It's not an accusation, Dean."

"I'm sorry you came all this way, Cas."

"Don't do this…"

"Looks like it was a waste of a good breach." Dean attempts a crooked grin. "Not to mention a good beach."

Castiel isn't responding to levity. "I came here to help you," he says softly.

"Really don't need it!" Dean retorts, a little too loudly, a little too raggedly. He looks down at his feet, shuffling in the sand, and lowers his voice. "Look, I'm not…" The word catches in his throat, and he tries to deflect the discomfort it causes him by rolling his eyes. "…broken…"

Merely saying it out loud has made him feel weak, ashamed, and that damn angel just keeps holding him in that tractor-beam stare.

"And I'm not hopeless…" He doesn't even sound convincing to himself. This isn't working. He has to find a different tact, a better way through this, because he's too tired, too punchy, he can't trust his thoughts here, and goddamnit he is _not _going to have this conversation.

Anger works better for him.

He peers up at Castiel and shrugs. "What does that even mean? I get up every morning, I brush my teeth, I kill evil things. What, am I doing it in the wrong order?"

"That's not what I—"

"It's not good enough for you?"

"Dean—"

"Or maybe _I'm _not good enough for you."

"You're twisting my words."

"It's overrated," Dean hears himself say, feeling like he had no control whatsoever in saying it (_and this is exactly why he didn't want to have this conversation_). The last of the stars blink out overhead.

"What is?" Castiel snaps, sounding irritated and confused.

"Hope. That thing I'm without."

Silence hovers. Castiel is studying him like he's a sudoku puzzle. Dean shivers in the chill night air.

"Look," says Dean, exhaling a shaky breath. "Whatever you think you heard, I'm telling you, you got your wires crossed. You're wrong."

"You're lying."

Dean darkens. "You don't know anything about me anymore."

"And you seem to forget where we are. This is where you store all the fear and insecurity, all the shame and self-loathing that you work so hard to conceal from the world. This is where you keep it. You can't hide from me here. You can't hide your fee—"

"Okay, stop, stop, just _stop_—you start talking to me about feelings, Cas, and so help me, I will walk straight into that ocean and_ keep walking!_"

Castiel rolls his own eyes now. He shakes his head a little, turns away from Dean, and casts his gaze across the moonlit sea, white light shimmering on its surface. He looks like he's trying to collect his thoughts, or maybe find strength to continue. When he finally speaks, he keeps his attention on the sea.

"All I'm trying to tell you…" he says in a quiet, reflective voice, "is that I remember the promise I made to you too. I promised you I would help Sam. And that I would redeem myself for all the pain, all the loss, I've caused you." He stops for a moment, closes his eyes. "You won't remember this … but whatever it takes, whatever the costs, I will not break that promise. I _will not_ fail you again, Dean."

He looks over at Dean now, moonlight glinting in his eyes. "I know things are bleak, but all I'm asking is that you hang on a little longer. That you don't give up now. That's all you have to remember."

Dean stares back at him, allowing the moment to draw out. "That's it?" he finally says. Feeling cheated again. And a little annoyed. "That's the message? 'Don't give up'? You tore open a pan-dimensional wormhole to tell me _that_? You couldn't have just left me a post-it note somewhere?"

Castiel frowns and tilts his head slightly. It's not so endearing this time. "It has to be simple and basic enough for you to remember."

"Why don't you try shoving it up your ass," Dean snaps, "maybe that'll be basic enough for me to remember."

"Dean…" in a tone of wilted exasperation.

He raises both hands. "Okay. I know. The waking blink thing. Yeah. I get it." But he's still annoyed.

"The best bet of recall is a simple thought packing an emotional punch. I'm sorry it carries no emotion for you."

"Well, don't sell yourself short. It does piss me off. Who the hell says I'm giving up?"

Castiel glances away, looking suddenly uneasy. He doesn't answer.

Dean can feel his thoughts growing cold. "That would be you, I guess. The guy who bailed when things got ugly, when his Purgatory pals took over and started gang-raping humanity. But hey, apparently we'll all live happily ever after if I personally just bend over and take it a while longer. Who am I to argue with that?"

"Dean, I … I'm not saying it'll be easy. Ahead of you is a greater darkness than you've ever faced. A war unlike any you've fought before. Something I started, something I must end. I'll fight by your side, but you have to hold on. The obstacles may seem insurmountable—Sam's mental state, the condition you'll find me in—"

"The what?"

"I'll be difficult to reach. The circumstances of my manifestation will be challenging. I may not know you. I'll need you to reach out, to put aside your distrust—"

"And there it is," Dean sighs bitterly, his own voice sounding as if it's coming from very far away. "You want my help. I should've known."

Castiel seems taken off-guard, less by the words than by the callousness that carries them.

Dean takes a few slow, measured steps toward him, noticing the way his breath condenses in chilled vapor clouds now, and closes the space between them to mere inches. Very softly, very coldly, Dean says, "If you can really read my every feeling here, then you should already know." Only the faint tremble in his voice belies the stony, insensate resolve that his eyes pin the angel's with now. "I don't trust you, Castiel. I will never trust you again. Not with my own life, and certainly not with my brother's. So don't look to me for help."

And he pushes past him, heading away.

"Where are you going?" he hears the angel ask.

"I'm getting in the car. It's fucking cold out here."

He slides into the front seat, swings the door shut, and rolls up the window. He twists the key in the ignition, and the engine purrs to life. It's still warm from his high-speed trek on that road to nowhere, so when he turns on the heat and cranks it up, blissfully warm air shoots from the vents. He sits there for a moment and closes his eyes, sinking into the warmth, into the comfort, of his prized possession. Feeling a little stab of pain as he remembers this is only a dream, and his prized possession has been lost, just another casualty of a war that never ends. Feeling the soul-deep exhaustion that is his constant companion now, even in sleep. Wanting more than anything to be back on that road again, driving away…

"To where?"

"What?" Dean snaps his eyes open.

"Where would you go?" asks Castiel, sitting beside him in the passenger seat, staring ahead into the dark expanse of sea.

"Close the window. You're letting the heat out."

"You know, without your help, I don't know that I'll find my way to Sam."

"I'll take care of Sam. It's what I do, what I've always done. I sure as hell don't need _your _help. Not yours, not anyone's. Not anymore. Close the window."

"You can't—"

Dean shoves his foot against the gas, revving the engine to drown him out.

"You can't do this alone," persists Castiel, nearly shouting to be heard.

Dean releases the pedal and turns to him now. "Who else do you see here, Cas?" he flares. "I'm fresh out of family, friends and allies. They're all dead. I'm not crying about it, I'm just telling you how it is, 'cuz, well, you've been gone awhile and you haven't exactly kept in touch. There's no team left. It's me and it's Sam. And less of him all the time. So really, it's just me. I _am_ alone." He forces himself to breathe, aware now of the effect his rampant emotions have on the environment. "And I'll take care of this. _Close the goddamn window_."

Castiel is deliberately ignoring the order. Either that or his mind is elsewhere… He's uneasy again, the way he was when Dean asked how he could accuse him of giving up. His brow is furrowed as if he's struggling with a decision, considering consequences, weighing up risks. And Dean is steeling himself—though he's not sure why—when Castiel says, "You need to understand—"

Dean guns the engine again, so suddenly that the whole car lurches violently, and in an equally sudden, swift movement, Castiel reaches across to the ignition, snatches the keys, and chucks them out the passenger window. Dean would throttle him if he thought it wouldn't cause a tidal wave…

"Nice," he says, seething. He throws open the door, stumbles out, and slams it shut. He's a little unsteady on his feet, so he leans against the car, wrapping his arms around himself against the cold, and against the tremor rising from somewhere deep within him that has nothing to do with the cold.

"Do you know where you are right now?" Castiel is leaning against the passenger door next to him and casts him a sidelong glance.

"Tasmania, apparently," Dean snipes.

"I mean in present-time waking reality," he says patiently. "Do you know where you are?"

Dean shifts uneasily. "No, I … I can't…"

"You're in that Buick you've been driving. On the side of a road."

"Yeah?" with an impatient shrug. "So?"

Castiel exhales a deep breath. And turns to him now. "So you were at the motel that you and Sam are staying at. You were standing outside the door, about to go in, and then you heard his voice. You could hear the one-sided conversation he was carrying on with Lucifer. You could hear the fear in his voice, the confusion, the despair…" Dean can feel the strength in his legs beginning to give out. He already knows this story. He's lived it night after night for months now. He wants him to stop. But Castiel goes on.

"You heard him break a piece of furniture, you heard glass shattering, you heard him shout… You wanted desperately to help him."

Dean wants desperately to stop Castiel talking.

"You wondered what you could do for him, if there was something you hadn't tried…"

_Please shut up_…

"And then you got back in your car, and you started driving. And you kept driving. Just needed a little space, you kept telling yourself. Just a little longer that you didn't have to listen to Sam suffer, didn't have to watch him disintegrate before your eyes, maybe just ten minutes."

It's eerily quiet now. The gulls have stopped crying. Dean can hardly hear the surf. It's as if time has frozen, the universe itself suspended in this moment, its fate waiting and contingent on whatever the angel at his side says next.

"You drove for nearly four hours," Castiel says very softly. "Two hundred and sixty-seven miles down country roads, in the dark, with no idea where you were heading. Except that it was _away_. And that's all that mattered." He pauses. "You only stopped when you started nodding off."

Memories are flooding back, and Dean feels physically sick. But little else. Emotions aren't roiling within him anymore. They've simply stopped. Or maybe they've shrunk away in horror, recoiling into some dark corner of his soul…

"Do you remember now?"

Dean is aware of the car door handle scraping along his back as he sinks slowly to the sand. "I don't know what happened," he whispers, sounding like he's in a daze, feeling like he's stepped on one of those sidewalk cracks you're supposed to avoid, and it's fracturing and splitting into a massive, gaping crevice in his own mind, and now he's just free-falling down into it, and he's no longer sure where he is or who he's talking to, but he feels compelled to speak, to explain—

_to rationalize?_

"_No_," he shoots back at himself. "I just … I wasn't thinking. That's all."

"You don't need to explain, Dean," says a voice from far above him, a million miles away.

"It's just I was so … I've been so tired … what's happening to him, it's constant now, and nothing I do … nothing … _helps_…" Words are hard to find, even harder to hold onto, and none of them are good enough, none of them make sense of what he's done. "I remember standing there … and hearing him … and just wanting to make everything stop, just for a little while, just long enough to catch my breath, so that I could…" grappling for words that spiral away from him in the free fall, "...figure out what to do, figure out how to help … but then something must've happened, because one minute I'm standing there and the next I'm … I'm in the car, and I'm—"

_leaving him_

"—driving away … and it's like I'm on auto-pilot, not thinking, just driving … and I couldn't stop, couldn't make myself…" The words he clutches at seem to be vibrating, and he realizes now it's because he's shaking so badly. "It's like I was possessed."

"You weren't."

Dean looks up toward the source of what surely was meant to be an accusation but came across with a bewildering lack of judgment. The words almost sounded gentle. He finds Castiel standing over him—_of course, I'm talking to _Castiel_, the best friend I watched die six months ago, because I couldn't stop that either—_and he wonders briefly if irrational, lifelong guilt has finally pushed him completely over the edge.

"I would never abandon him," Dean tells his dead friend, a little desperately. "I would never leave him. If I could help him—if I knew how to help him—but I swear to God, I swear to _you_, Cas—when I _can _help him, I _do_, I always do, you know that, I would _never_ turn my back on Sam. You know that, right?"

"Do you remember that he called you?" the angel asks quietly.

Dean blinks at him. "What?"

"After you pulled over, your cellphone rang. You were still awake. He was trying to reach you. He saw you leave. He just wanted to know that you were okay."

"I saw it was him…" Dean recounts in a hazy disconnectedness, closing his eyes as the memory drifts back. "…and I turned off the phone."

_So I turned the phone off_, his mind sputters. _Big deal. Sam's never ignored one of my calls before? People do it all the time, it doesn't mean anything_…

Except this time it does.

This time he knows in his gut, he knows deep in his soul, that he hadn't planned on returning that call. In the mind-state he was in as he tore down that country highway in the middle of the night, white-knuckle grip on the wheel only relaxing as the miles between him and Sam mounted, he knows now that he had no plan to turn back. Standing in front of that motel room door, Dean had sort of … snapped …

"…and I left him," he hears himself confess. And in that instant he suddenly understands that the rage he's been feeling toward Cas, the unforgiving blame, the condemnation, was cleverly misdirected. It belonged to himself all along. It belongs to him now. He opens his eyes and raises them hesitantly into the angel's. "I abandoned him, Cas."

And with the realization comes such an overwhelming sense of grief that for a moment he thinks he might dissolve into tears. But the recrimination vaults into place too swiftly, the self-hatred too thorough, and instead everything in him begins to shut down, and he goes completely numb, completely cold.

It's not reflected in the outside temperature this time. In fact the chill is gone now. The air feels … like nothing at all. Like dead space. The darkness has lifted slightly, paling, like the twilight before dawn, but the colors are muted, dull, the sky a prison-grey and the ocean a mirror of its lifelessness. The moon is a faded afterthought adrift just over the horizon. Dean can't bear to look at it. He crosses his arms over his knees and lowers his head into them.

Time seems to stretch.

And Dean makes a decision.

He can feel Castiel's presence. He can feel that the angel has moved in closer. He can feel that he's watching him. And there's something oddly satisfying about that, something he can't quite put his finger on until the angel ruins it when he finally speaks.

"You can't do this alone, Dean," he says, again, and this time with such undeniable gentleness that Dean realizes he's truly not being judged. There will be no divine intervention. No retribution for what he's done. His angel of the Lord hasn't returned to throw him back into Hell, as once he warned. He's offering him compassion. And Dean hates him for it.

"You're right," he says quietly, raising his head now. "I can't fix this."

"But _I_ can. If you can just trust me—"

"Cas." A light breeze that is neither warm nor cool sweeps between them. "I can't even trust myself."

The angel hasn't really heard him. "I'll take care of this. All you have to do is—"

"Keep driving."

Castiel pauses, staring at him. "What?"

"When I wake up." His own voice sounds so calm and even, so weirdly resolute, it hardly sounds like his own. "I need to keep driving."

"That isn't what you need."

"It's what _Sam_ needs. I have to let go. Get as far from him as I can." It makes such painfully perfect sense.

"Dean, you're confused—"

"No. I'm not. If this is my subconscious, then this is what I believe. This is what I really feel. Isn't that what you said?"

The angel just stares at him helplessly, trapped by his own logic.

"I ran away from him, Cas. I ran away from my own brother."

"You ran away from your feelings of helplessness—"

"Because I _can't help him_," Dean fires back, losing the calm just for that instant, then reigning it back in. "I screwed up last night. But I was already failing him. I'm making nothing but mistakes these days. You have no idea, Cas. This was just … the latest. Do you know he's been hospitalized three different times? Three different times he went crazy in public, and I couldn't stop it. Three different times I pulled him out of locked-down wards. Brought him home. Because I was so sure I could fix him … so sure I could find something in one of the books, or one of the spells, or Dad's notes, or maybe one of my contacts would call back with…" Dean feels exhausted just recounting aloud all the failed paths he's blazed, countless days and sleepless nights spent poring over resources that inevitably led nowhere. "And he keeps telling me to let go … the last time he begged me …" He blinks back tears that fog and distort his view. "But I'm supposed to help him. That's my job. That's who I am. If I can't do that, then I'm…"

_done_

Castiel is looking frustrated now, as if preparing himself to launch into the same speech again, and Dean levels his gaze on him, interrupting him, catching his eyes. "It's almost like I'm broken," he says softly, deliberately.

He has to shut his eyes now against the torrent of guilt that threatens to capsize his thoughts, his carefully wrought calm, but the unexpected images flooding in—images of all the people he's loved, and let down, and lost—are spilling like blood from that crevice in his mind. Sammy, Bobby, Cas … Lisa and Ben … Ellen and Jo … Dad … Mom. He knows that the memories, and the guilt infusing them, are all part of his twisted subconscious, all tangled up in his irrationally brutal sense of responsibility, and that here in this place, on this miserable beach, he's unable to censor them, or temper the pain's intensity. He knows he wouldn't if he could. Because here on this beach, imprisoned in his mind, he believes he's let down everyone who ever loved him.

The pain recedes anyway, as it always does for Dean, into that cold, vacant place where feeling isn't allowed. Where he can cope. Or at least live with himself. On some dimly lit level of his psyche he understands what's happening, that even now he's being trounced by his own damaged, and treacherous, subconscious. That he shouldn't buy into it. That he should be fighting back. That's what he does, right? That's what he's supposed to be doing…

Dean looks up at his companion, who has fallen silent. His expression has darkened, perhaps in finally understanding there's nothing he can do here, that he's lost this one. And maybe it's the pallid pre-dawn glow off the horizon, but in this light Dean thinks he looks more ordinary than he's ever seen him look, more breakable, almost fragile. Almost human. And Dean finds himself wishing that he could have met up with this kinder, gentler, more human version of Cas in the real world, the version that smiles every now and then. Maybe they would have been friends again. Maybe they would have fought. Probably they would have hated each other. And loved each other. Like old times. Dean thinks he'll never know.

Castiel says something strange then, something that almost makes Dean smile. "I'm going to ask you nicely one last time," he avers, sounding vaguely threatening, looking completely harmless. "Let me help you."

_Tough guy, huh?_, Dean hears James Cagney jeer in his head, and unexpected affection for Cas blooms briefly in the emptiness he feels. It's fading by the time he speaks.

"If you want to help," he says in that eerily calm, detached tone, "do what you can for Sam. You have my blessing."

Castiel closes his eyes and bows his head. It's a gesture of loss. As if he's finally fallen in the battle he came here to wage. "It's not your blessing I want."

"It's all I've got." It's Dean's own voice that sounds a million miles away now. "I'm sorry."

Castiel slowly turns away, and leans back against the Impala. Dean still sits beside him in the sand. They both stare out at the dismal grey ocean.

After a while the angel says simply, "Okay."

x

* * *

><p>x<p>

"You might as well send me back now."

Time is indecipherable in a dream. Moments can stretch like hours, and hours can blink away in moments. Dean doesn't know how long he's been here. But it doesn't matter to him. He's felt strangely calm since his decision. In a completely vacant, shut-down, divorced-of-all-emotion sort of way. He hasn't minded being here since then. And he hasn't minded the company.

He's in no hurry to get back, no rush to face his reality. He's not thinking about it. He's not thinking about anything. He went to sleep on auto-pilot and he'll wake up that way. But he can't stay in this dead space forever, where dawn never arrives, tempting though it is.

He glances over at Castiel. The angel hasn't moved since he last spoke, though it may only have been seconds ago. He just stares at the sea, his eyes dark, his expression unreadable.

Dean wonders if he heard him, and is about to repeat himself, when Castiel says, "Stand up, Dean."

Without really thinking, Dean obliges, accepting this as part of the exit strategy. He climbs to his feet, brushes sand from his jeans, and immediately feels foolish (_am I worried about getting sand in the Buick?_). It's only then that the request to stand strikes him as odd. Doesn't a two-pronged touch to the forehead usually do the job? Why does he have to stand?

When he looks up, Castiel is facing him, his gaze pinning him in a way that startles him, causing him to take an unconscious step back. He's seen that look before. He saw it first in a dream, three days after they met, when Castiel demanded his respect. He saw it again a year later, in the darkness outside Bobby's panic room, as the angel slammed its metal door shut on him. And not long after that, in a seedy dark alley…

But it isn't exactly anger he's seeing in the angel's eyes. This is more like … resolve. Like _he's_ made a decision too.

"Oh, okay," Dean sighs, and wonders how he can feel so desperately tired even in sleep. "Is this the part where you throw me into some alternate universe where I can see the error of my ways? Learn some valuable lesson, remember what my mission is … maybe realize what a great guy I really am?" The single cry of a gull echoes down the beach. "I don't think it's gonna work this time."

Castiel just watches him with those dark eyes.

Dean shuffles uneasily. Rethinking. Trying to read him and failing. It's when he recognizes that he's feeling threatened by the angel that he smiles.

"Or maybe you just want to beat the living shit out of me. I mean, it worked pretty well for you once…"

Was that the faintest glimmer of reaction in those eyes? Dean's not sure, but he's bracing himself for whatever is next. Because _something_ is definitely next. And waking up from a dream isn't it. That much he can read in the angel's glower.

He begins circling him now, slowly, keeping a wary distance, aware that anger is welling inside him again, twisting like a blade in his thoughts.

"You used to call yourself a soldier," he finds himself saying, his voice spiked with sarcasm, his subconscious already commandeering his spoken words. "A warrior of God. Before you _became _God, that is," Dean smirks. He slowly circles as he baits the angel. "Did they clip your wings for that, Cas? Have you been neutered? Is that why you're so useless here?"

He tilts his head back so that he can deliberately look down on him. "Not much of a soldier anymore, are you. You can barely stand up to me, and I've done nothing but disappoint you. I've given up. I've ruined your plans. I've let you down … and your response is …" he shrugs, eyes flashing, "_'okay'?_ You're pathetic."

Castiel watches him, turning with Dean's circle, but he isn't responding. "_What the hell kind of warrior are you?_" His anger is flaring into rage and he's not even sure why, because he's really not angry at Cas, he's only trying to provoke him, he just wants this to end, but he can hear the surf pounding behind him and the cackle of gulls arguing overhead. The beach is getting pissed off.

"Go on, Cas," he taunts. "Show some wrath. Make me suffer. Make me pay." And he realizes too late, as his voice is breaking and he's blinking back tears, that he's pleading now. "Make it _hurt_…"

Dean stops moving. A thought has occurred to him, so deadly sharp in its clarity that everything else in his mind stills. "Cas…" he asks very softly. "Can I be killed here? Can you do that?"

Castiel says nothing. His head is lowered as he watches him with those dark, impervious eyes, their intensity so piercing it's almost unbearable. But Dean can't read them. Until Cas blinks. It happens in a fraction of an instant, almost imperceptibly, but in that instant he looks down, away, he breaks contact. And Dean has his answer.

He slowly raises both arms to his sides, and offers himself up.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Do it."

Castiel remains silent and expressionless.

And Dean explodes. "_DO IT!_"

The words are barely out of his throat when Castiel suddenly bolts forward, Dean catching a flash of arms shooting toward him. He inadvertently flinches back as hands seize his shoulders, gripping him so tightly that he's caught off guard, and his resistance is inadvertent as well, the skills of self-defense too well-honed, too instinctual, to be subdued. He tries to shove Castiel back, but those arms wrench him forward so violently that he's hauled off his feet and sent crashing against the angel's chest, and before he can right his balance, Castiel's arms are wrapped around him, restraining him in a vicelike grip. Dean struggles—again, on pure adrenalin-charged instinct—he's just invited Cas to kill him, but his hunter's savvy won't allow him to go down without a fight—and the world is spinning around him, the sea and the sand and the trees and the Impala swimming past him in peripheral vision as the world ducks and dives, while before him is Castiel, an immutable presence, as impenetrable as a stone wall, somehow larger than he's ever been, completely overpowering, and the grip becomes so tight that Dean can hardly breathe.

_He's not fighting me_, Dean thinks frantically, _he's _crushing_ me_, and with that thought pure survival instinct kicks in, and Dean struggles uselessly against him, fighting for air, fighting for a life he doesn't even want, and he kicks and pushes and punches at Castiel in what little room he has to move, but the angel's intractable hold immobilizes him, and the beach begins to go dark, the twilight blinks out, the ocean disappears, as if the world is closing down around him...

For a fleeting moment he thinks he's losing consciousness, except he can still hear the lapping waves, a few crying gulls, and he's aware of a new sensation on his skin, brushing against his body. He's still being held tight, but not just by hands... A small whimper escapes his throat as he realizes that the implausibly soft, warm pressure enveloping his body are the massive wings that have risen high enough to block out the light and wrap themselves around him, engulfing him, restraining him, supporting him, cradling him...

Their strength is immeasurable. They constrain his movement with paradoxical gentleness, protecting him from himself, separating him from his defenses, binding the pain, forcing it to surface in the safety of their embrace and in the presence of pure, unwavering, unconditional love, and he's hating Castiel now in a way he's never hated anyone or anything before. He fights against this new enemy, this affront to everything he knows about himself and the stark brutality of the world, this _outrage_, he bucks and kicks and shouts his infuriation, cursing Cas, cursing himself … and here within this space, all that meets his hatred is boundless love.

He's never felt anything like it. It's not like any kind of love he's ever known. It asks for nothing. It expects nothing of him. It accepts and embraces everything about him, every strength, every virtue, every vice, every failing, every mistake he's ever made. It simply _is_, and it seems to exist everywhere and everywhen at once, as if it's always been and always will be, and he feels completely and utterly insignificant in its vastness ... and completely and utterly loved.

And it's unbearable.

He finds himself pleading now, pleading with Cas to stop this, it isn't right, it's not fair, he doesn't belong here—"I don't deserve this," he sputters (and he doesn't so much hear as _feel_ the angel's distinct response: _Shut up, Dean_). But Castiel won't let go. And he doesn't speak, but it doesn't matter. Words have become irrelevant. Everything Dean needs to know he can feel in the angel's touch. Just as he can feel the wondrous sense of connection to everyone he's ever known, everyone he's ever saved, and to all those he's yet to know, and yet to save, weaving like an unbreakable thread through a tapestry of friends, enemies, loved ones, and complete strangers, and the sense of connection is so powerful, so overwhelming, it takes his breath away. He can feel his knees begin to buckle…

and the wings enfolding him gently tighten around him.

Dean keeps his eyes clamped shut, not daring to open them, but his other senses are vibrantly alive and connected to the present moment. He can feel the angel's chest pressed against his, an expanse of steady, calming warmth, and the fierce pounding of his own heartbeat against it. He can feel Castiel's shoulder beneath his face, and the tickling sensation of feathers against his cheek. He can smell salt from the ocean, seaweed, and the scent of something sweeter and lighter than brine, the fragrance of untainted sea. He can hear the squawk of gulls circling far above…

"Please let me go," he begs on a voice so thin he barely hears it.

…the rustle of leaves from trees on the verdant bluff above the car, the swell of the ocean tide, and the rasp of his own heavy breathing. He can feel moist sand caving in around his feet, slipping into his shoes, and he can feel all the energy that fueled his anger steadily draining away, as if sinking into the sand with his feet.

_No_.

Castiel's response resonates through him, as unyielding as his winged embrace.

He can feel his emotions tumbling now, diving, into a deeper level, entirely on their own and without his consent, from implacable rage into crushing grief, a grief he's never allowed himself to feel—_and there's a good fucking reason for that_, he thinks desperately, knowing Cas will hear—making one last futile attempt to wrest himself free, but those wings just close in more tightly around him, Castiel won't let go, and that ineffable love—_Castiel's_ _grace?_, Dean wonders—that reaches into his heart and stretches out to eternity is tripping him up, foiling his defenses, and there seems to be no point in fighting it, maybe no point in fighting himself, and he's aware of water tugging at his feet, a gull crying overhead, and in his mind's eye he sees his brother Castiel disappearing forever into a vast dark lake and Dean doesn't stop it, and he sees his brother Sam in a motel room, alone and frightened and waiting, disappearing into his own private hell and Dean doesn't stop it, and he wonders how anything could possibly forgive him, let alone love him, and it's then that he just lets himself break.

He's almost startled by the sound of his own sobbing. He can't remember the last time he cried, but it was never like this. It sounds deep and guttural, almost like he's choking, and now that he's started, he can't stop. It's like the floodgates have been ripped opened and the current crashing through them is too powerful, too devastating, to be contained. He sobs uncontrollably, the grief rushing from a place so deep within him that it's physically painful, causing his stomach to cramp and his chest to ache, but he can't stop himself. His lungs are heaving, and it's getting hard to breathe, and he's a little afraid he might be sick, but he can't stop himself. He's dimly aware that he's holding on tight to Castiel now, clutching him as if for dear life, even as he knows that he can't fall here, any more than he can fail. And the wings around him shift slightly then, brushing against him ever so gently, and all the physical discomfort vanishes.

He sobs uncontrollably, and Castiel holds him.

_Crying in Cas's arms_, flickers dismally through Dean's head, and that thought alone should have stopped him cold, but for some crazy reason it triggers more grief.

He doesn't know how long it goes on. Time has lost all meaning—this may be lasting moments or hours, he has no idea—but he's certain it can't go on for much longer. He doesn't have the strength. He's shaking from the force of emotion that has torn through him like a tidal wave, demolishing his carefully structured defense system, washing away the last of his energy, leaving him weak and exposed and unsteady. He's sure he can't stand any longer without Castiel's support. But at the same time, he's not sure he needs to stand. He has the strange feeling that if Cas released him now, he would simply float away.

The tears have finally stopped, more from his sheer exhaustion than a drain of emotion, and his breath hitches involuntarily, the way a child's does after a long cry. That should've mortified him, but right now he just doesn't care. He's aware that he's no longer clutching Cas, and that Cas's hold is no longer one of restraint. Dean lets himself sink into the embrace, and it fills him with something he hasn't felt in longer than he can remember. Contentment.

He's exhausted. And empty. And somehow… lighter. Somehow freer.

And somehow more aware of the divine grace that holds him.

It's the stillness he's most aware of now. Profound, deep, wonderful _stillness_. In the space of this moment his thoughts have stopped clamoring for attention, all argument has ceased, his fears have subsided, his anger is spent, and in the stillness that is left there is nothing but peace.

His eyes are still closed, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to drift into sleep (_and he thinks of his mother then, blonde locks tumbling down around her face as she cradled him in her arms, and how that was the last time in his life he was able to fall asleep in such utter, simple peace_)… No, not sleep, he corrects himself, he's already asleep …. maybe into dreamlessness … but he can't let that happen yet. Not yet. He's not ready to let go of this yet.

It'll be over soon, he knows, and he'll be cast back out into the brutal world, out of this sacred space and out of the extraordinary experience he's just had. And he must already be slipping from the angel's grace, because the edges of that precious stillness are fraying with sadness now, sadness in knowing that once Cas lets go, once this is over, he'll never feel anything like it again. This level of connection, of acceptance, of love, will be just a memory.

Or maybe not even that.

"Dean…"

It's the first time his friend has actually spoken in what seems like ages. _When he told me to stand up_, Dean thinks, and that might have been minutes ago or days…

He notices the flicker of sunlight through his closed eyelids just as he's opening them. He has to squint against brilliant white light, and thinks he must be looking directly at the sun before realizing he's looking at Cas. Dean blinks and the radiance dims, and it's only as he's staring at him—Cas in his slightly rumpled dark jacket, hair blown askew by the sea breeze, arms at his sides, his expression soft and attentive and warm—that Dean realizes he's standing on his own.

And he nearly collapses then. Cas reaches out quickly to catch him, and Dean allows himself to be caught. It's then that he notices the sky…

His breath catches. It's sunrise. Golden sunlight spills across the horizon as the sun begins to crown on the sea, sending wave after wave of dazzling color—golds, yellows, purples, pinks, blues, greens—flaring upward toward the heavens, dipping, soaring, spiraling, undulating, creating a spectacular display of light. Dean's never seen anything so beautiful. He's never seen the aurora borealis, but he imagines it's got nothing on this.

He steps backward, finding support against the Impala behind him, and shifts his attention to Cas. He's not exactly sure what he's feeling right now. It's as if all his feelings have been cleared out.

"So, wh…" he manages, his voice sounding rough and unsteady, "what the hell was that?"

Cas watches him and very softly says, "Yours."

"Oh yeah?" Dean's trying to sound casual. Trying to camouflage the embarrassment he's suddenly feeling. After all, he just broke into a million pieces in the arms of the guy—an angel, sure, but a _guy_ nonetheless—standing in front of him. Still, he needs to know… "Does that mean I'll remember it?"

Cas looks at him wistfully and shakes his head. "No."

"Oh…" Dean is trying now to hide disappointment. He smirks. "Well, thank God for that."

Cas smiles at him, seeing right through him. "Yes."

He looks off to one side now, toward the sea, as if he's being called away, and Dean has seen that look enough times to recognize it. His friend is about to leave.

Dean watches the sunlight dance in his eyes and wonders if he'll ever see him again. Bitterness is tingeing his thoughts now. The ol' love-'em-and-leave-'em act, he knows it well. He tries to read the angel's expression, tries to guess at what he's about to say before he makes his exit—_See ya 'round? Sweet dreams? It's been real?—_or maybe, _Good luck with that Sam thing_. No. More likely he'll get nothing at all, just the usual vanishing act. Whatever's coming, he's ready for it.

As it turns out, he's not.

"Give up if you need to, Dean," Castiel says solemnly, resting his gaze back upon him. "You'll be loved no less for it. But if everything else said here fades with the light of day, and it most likely will, hold on to just one thing." The rising sun is at his back, but its rays reflect off the sea, shimmering on his face, and Dean can see that his eyes are sparkling with tears. "I won't give up on you ... And there's nothing you have to do to sustain that. You don't have to prove yourself. You don't have to win a war, or even stand in battle. In fact, there's nothing at all you can do about it. I won't give up on you. It just is."

Just when Dean thought he'd been drained of tears.

His friend … his brother … turns away from him now, a silhouette against the magnificent sunrise. He stands motionless for a moment, as if weighing a final thought.

"And one more thing," he says, turning back, a faint edge of exasperation in his tone, as if he's relaying news that should be glaringly obvious. "You are _not_ alone."

And then he vanishes.

And Dean is alone.

He takes a last look at the stunning array of colors sweeping across the sky, and closes his eyes.

x

* * *

><p>x<p>

And then opened them. And blinked.

Daylight flooded his vision. His neck hurt. He obviously slept at some weird angle. His head hurt too, probably from dehydration, or maybe all those hours spent driving last night. A seagull was cawing somewhere out the window. He was in desperate need of a piss…

_A seagull?_

He clamored out of the Buick, groaning at the cramps in his muscles and the stiffness in his legs. He was too old for backseat camp-outs, he thought. As he relieved himself into a roadside shrub, he noticed the crow in the middle of the road, eyeing him suspiciously, its beak plucking at the tangled intestines of something that didn't make it across. Another crow landed beside it, and an argument ensued, black wings flapping in a heated exchange of caws. They flew their separate ways when a massive delivery truck thundered past, smashing their breakfast into the asphalt.

"Another day in paradise," he mumbled.

He rubbed his neck, squinted against the stony grey light of early morning, zipped his fly. Yawned and stretched.

Looked at the sky again. Found himself frowning, though he wasn't sure why.

A damp chill hung in the air, and a little shiver snapped him out of it. He noticed now that the window in the front seat was open, that he'd left it rolled down. It must have been freezing during the night, and he wondered how he could have slept through that. He must've been dead to the world.

Or just running from it, he thought, feeling the weight of his cellphone in his jacket pocket. He reluctantly pulled it out and switched it back on.

There were three voicemail messages from Sam.

He stood there a moment, breathing in the dewy air, listening to the far-off din of some sort of farm vehicle, maybe a tractor. Apart from the trio of crows hopping in his peripheral vision, settling in to feast on flattened roadkill, everything around him was still.

With the touch of a button, a single word flashed on the cellphone screen.

_Delete?_

He paused. Then pressed "yes". Three times.

He scrolled down the menu and discovered there was a text message as well. It had been sent less than an hour ago, after Sam had apparently given up on Dean answering his phone.

He exhaled a deep breath, his finger hovering over the delete query, and selected "open".

It was a five-word message.

_You made the right choice._

Dean deleted the message and flipped the phone shut. "I know," he said.

He considered taking a walk, maybe clearing the grogginess of sleep from his head. But he could hear the rumble of another heavy-load vehicle approaching, another delivery truck on its early-morning run. There would be little traffic on the roads right now, apart from those. He could cover a lot of miles this time of morning.

Maybe find some backwoods greasy spoon along the way for a quick coffee. He had no appetite, but he could use the caffeine. He couldn't possibly have slept well.

And with that thought he climbed back into the Buick, massaging at his neck. He slid the key into the ignition, started the engine, and rolled forward down the sloping shoulder toward the road, gravel crunching beneath the tires. He turned the wheel gently, angling the car perpendicularly to the road, and stopped at its edge. And just sat there for a minute, listening to the engine's hum. There was a battered Thomas Guide in the trunk that he should have pulled out. He was going to need it. He wasn't even sure which state he was in.

It was a wide road, maybe an interstate highway. A left would take him further out into the sprawling countryside, to destinations, and futures, unknown. A right would take him back where he came from. He turned the wheel.

The delivery truck was fast approaching, just around the bend now, and he figured he might as well let it pass before turning. He rubbed his eyes. He might have been wrong about his sleep. He didn't remember waking during the night, and he didn't remember dreaming, which was always a good sign… Dean only ever remembered the nightmares. If he had good dreams, they were lost to him. It was like a cosmic joke. But at least it meant he had slept.

Something soft tickled his nose. He swatted absently at it, annoyed now that he didn't make the turn when he had the chance, because there were two more giant tankers lumbering along behind the first one.

He glanced down and found a small white feather in his fingers.

He grunted. Freakin' birds. He was about to toss it out the open window, but for some reason stopped. Found himself just staring at it. It reminded him of something, something just at the edge of his memory, just out of his reach.

As the next truck rumbled past, he closed his fingers around the feather, and pushed it into the left breast pocket of his jacket. Then pressed his hand against it, against his heart.

And abruptly snapped himself out of it. Whatever the hell that was.

Damn. He really needed that coffee.

The last truck passed, and he finished the turn, swinging the wheel to the right and flooring the accelerator, wasting no more time to get back on the road. Back to Sam.

He pushed a Metallica tape into the deck and cranked up the volume. Then glanced over at the passenger seat, hit with a sudden wave of déjà vu. He _did _dream, he was almost sure of it … and was there someone in the dream with him?

Dean was sure there was. He tried to think. It seemed important…

Then he smiled crookedly.

"Lara Croft," he snickered. So it was a good dream after all.

He was already breaking the state speed limit, whichever state it was, as he sped away, wishing he could remember the good ones.

x

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><p>x<p> 


End file.
